Eps 206: The path to radical acceptance

Joyful Courage for Parenting Teens

Hey friends… thank you for meeting me here. Thank you for seeing me and for sharing the ways that this podcast resonates with you and supports you. I have received feedback from so many of you talking about how this show is a lifeline for you, and a place where the experience you are having on the parenting journey is validating.

Radical Acceptance

• Have you heard of this?
• DBT (which I haven’t ever done and know really nothing about accepting something with all of your soul opening yourself to fully experience the reality of the moment
• Fighting reality continues suffering
• Being in acceptance allow “radically accept that you want something you don’t have and it’s not a catastrophe” – Marsha Lineham
• The moment your in and the past – but you can change from there
• Reality is what it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTG7YEWkJFI

Past and future fucks us up

• How many of us feel guilty and rack our brains looking for where we screwed up? If we did it differently we wouldn’t be in the situation we are in….
• But but but…. Shouldn’t we think about the future? And how can we not??? I have hopes and dreams for my kids, of course.
• THEY ARE THE DESIGNERS OF THEIRL IFE AND HOW CAN I GET OUT OF THE WAY????????
• Creating a space that is pure enough for them to trust themselves.

Popular conversations

• Would have us believe that there is a five step process for getting the outcome we want with our kids
• Popular conversations would have us believe that parenting is about them and not us
• Popular conversations would have us believe that if things go sideways it is about something that we are doing wrong, that there is something to fix
• Popular conversation blames the world today, technology, and teens themselves for what we are seeing

What if popular conversation is wrong

What if parenting is all about us?

What if no matter WHAT we do, our kids are going to experience the path they are meant to experience?

What if right here, right now, is exactly as it is meant to be?

Radical acceptance.

If this is exactly where we are meant to be, with all fo the challenges that exist – and I see you out there. Those of you with kids who are navigating mental health challenges, drug use and abuse, risky behavior –

I see you out there who FROM THE BEGINNING were invited into radical acceptance due to your childs different abilities – whether they be physical, mental or emotional. You are the ones that all of us can learn from. This is old news, this idea of accepting reality AS IT IS. Thank you for being models for the rest of us and modeling what this looks like….

If this is exactly where we are meant to be, if we accept rather than resist the reality that we are finding ourselves in day to day, then there must be a purpose.

Perhaps it is as simple as sitting in this space. Allowing the physical, emotional, and spiritual experience of this acceptance to live without trying to make it go away.

My own experience with this….

• Eps 203 I talked about getting a therapist
• Current situation creating a physical response in my body
• Somatic therapy/radical acceptance called me to transform the experience
• What also shows up….. self doubt (the ego is super loud)
• Back to radical acceptance, back to turning inward and being with what is showing up

Raise your hand if you can’t sleep?

Raise your hand if your belly is tied up in knots?

Raise your hand if you are experiencing feat that is with you all.damn.day?

I see you.

Radical acceptance. Things are as they are.

• Feel that
• Notice what shows up
• Allow it to have a voice
• How does your body respond?
• What happens when you bring compassion?
• Can you be with it?

We are not in charge of the narrative that is our children’s lives. Yet , as that narrative plays out, we can write our own narrative about how we are going to show up……

And right now, the narrative that I am writing is one of radical acceptance.

I love you!

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